


the epilogue

by bluebeholder



Series: the accidental epic [50]
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Epilogue, F/F, F/M, Happily Ever After, M/M, POV First Person, The End, wrapping it up
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-11-01 07:18:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17862842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebeholder/pseuds/bluebeholder
Summary: Credence tells us the end of the story.It is a very happy ending.





	the epilogue

**Author's Note:**

> <3<3<3

So ends the most interesting part of this tale.

If you've read your official histories you'll know the story of the World War that consumed us all a scant few years after the Battle of Nurmengard. You will recall that I spent the first years of the conflict campaigning for an intervention before the Assembly of the International Confederation of Wizards, and when it became clear that this campaign would not work led an insurgency against the German Muggles myself. You will know of Seraphina Picquery's heroic action in 1937, when the Chinese Muggles came under attack from their neighbors in Japan. You will remember the horrors that the wizarding world should have stopped, but never did, a failure for which millions paid the ultimate price. And you will remember the worldwide resolve, after 1945, to never let something like this happen again.

This is all history. It's written down. It's official. My biography in that history is, if you'll pardon the pun, bare-bones at best. Official histories tend to leave out precisely what happened to me, or what happened to Percival. Our other friends are far less shameful in the eyes of the world. Tina and Queenie, Newt and Jacob—heroes of the wizarding world. They call Percival and I heroes too, but habitually leave out certain details about just why he and I made the choices that we made.

With this long work, I hope to set the record straight.

I have interviewed every party whose story I’ve recorded, in as much detail as I can, and attempted a kind of loose chronology. There are errors, of course, because memories are unreliable, and not all of us can afford a Pensieve. This is, in part, why Dumbledore’s recollections are missing from this collection. We will never have a chance to truly understand why he made his choices, but I have more than a few guesses. Love is, as Percival and I learned very well, a powerful magic—for good or ill.

Much of this will come as a shock to my readers. Conspiracies, Obscurials, secret families, the deep mysteries of magic: I know that this story could be dismissed as a mere melodrama. It’s not. It’s as true as I have been able to make it. Some have cautioned me against scandal, but I have to laugh at that. Making a revelation of, say, Ya Zhou’s love story with Seraphina Picquery is the oft-cited cause, but we’re so many years away now that it won’t matter.

Let me tell you a little about where we went, after we disappeared from the official histories. With our heroics past, all of us were exhausted. But there was work left to do, although historians have pointedly chosen not to recall certain aspects.

Tina and Queenie began the monumental labor of love that has been reconnecting with their Jewish heritage. Their children—all of their children, three for Tina and four for Queenie!—were raised in the faith, and Jacob is a happy convert.

Newt, of course, hasn’t been able to keep his rambling feet in one place. He continues to travel the world, raising his voice loudly in support of creatures, magical or not. Tina goes with him. She’s also become an esteemed magizoologist. How they manage to do all that they do and raise three children, I will never understand. But I admire them both!

Ya Zhou retains the Chair of the Party in China, with Seraphina at her right hand. It’s never widely said that they’re more than friends, but of course we all know. Since Modesty couldn’t go to Hogwarts or another formal educational institution, she was privately tutored in China, with Ya Zhou’s blessing.

I did not expect Modesty to find a husband there, of all the possible outcomes, but the two have been very happy so far, despite their youth. Modesty’s shadow only flickers when she is in a real temper: it seems that if an Obscurial is young enough, proper training will reduce its power to almost nothing. Mine will always haunt me, but Modesty is largely free of it.

James and Theseus moved in together in a flat in London and claimed that it was only to save on the rent. Their wedding was last summer; we were all invited. Theseus has been hired back on by Gringotts Bank, which needs new security measures since the dragon that was once kept beneath the London branch somehow mysteriously vanished.

I have _no_ idea who would have done something so audacious as break it out.

Leta Lestrange has gone to private life, these days; she never wanted the spotlight to begin with and after the Battle at Nurmengard she was a pariah to her family and wanted to start her life over on her own terms. I visit her fairly frequently; she’s a sharp mind, and taught me to play wizard chess so well that I can beat Percival soundly.

In America, Winfrith Simon serves as Director of Magical Security and Rosa Alvarez serves as Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. With them at the helm, and with a series of new, wiser presidents, American Aurors are changing their practice. Rappaport’s Law has recently been repealed, and I think the cheers were heard all the way to Stockholm.

Dahomey, Brazil, and their allies won massive acclaim after the Battle of Nurmengard and their role in stopping Grindelwald. Their power in the Confederation has tripled and their voices are heard as the equal of any other country. A titanic shift in the formulation of wizarding schools around the world, led by these states, is underway.

And I believe the last important people to list are Percival and I.

I have remained active in politics. I have no patience whatsoever for half the policies of the Confederation, and I spend about half the year wherever the Assembly has convened, working as a lobbyist for various causes and arguing with politicians. Percival, meanwhile, finally accepted the offer of a position at Durmstrang and teaches there as an acclaimed instructor of Defense Against the Dark Arts. I know that, under his tutelage, the attitude of many Durmstrang students toward the world is beginning to change.

The year now is 1956. It’s been almost three decades since Percival and I met, on that fateful night in January 1927, and so many things have changed. Others simply haven’t.

I will leave you with this picture.

It is summer in Godric’s Hollow. Percival is home from Durmstrang, enjoying his leisure time. I spent most of the day in the garden, but I’m now sitting at the dining room table while Percival makes dinner. We’ll have guests tonight, a house full of family. Newt and Tina are on a flying visit to London and were convinced to come tonight to see us; Jacob and Queenie will come along. The children, all grown or mostly grown now, are off on their own adventures. Still, the house will be noisy tonight!

But for now, it’s just Percival and I. If I look up I can see him, hard at work making enough to feed six people. He’s just a little more than seventy and handsome as ever, still fit as he needs to be to keep up with the young students at Durmstrang. His hair is gray all the way through, shot with white, and the spectacles he wears all the time now make him look distinguished.

If I look in the mirror, I see a man I never thought I would be. Healthy, happy, strong. Confident in himself and in his place in the world. Loved by family and by the best of all possible men. I look back on the boy I was, when Percival and I met, when our story began, and shake my head in surprise. I’m not that boy anymore. He’s still there, still a part of me, but he is healing at long, long last.

Nightmares haunt us both, even still, and my shadow has a habit of muttering in corners. But I’ve learned to ignore it, and Percival smiles so much these days that the lines on his face reflect it. We’ve come a long way. There is further still to go, and we will go hand in hand.

Percival’s calling me into the kitchen. I expect to be shouted at a bit, for putting the Venomous Tentacula in the pantry, but I’d like to know where else I was supposed to keep it if not there? But this is a good place to end the epilogue.

Imagine me getting up, and walking into the kitchen where Percival is dueling one of my toothier plants. Imagine it beaten back with spells and laughter, and the playful scolding I will receive. Imagine the kiss that will follow, in the golden glow of the afternoon sunlight.

Imagine us happy.

**Author's Note:**

> That’s a wrap. 
> 
> Almost two years after I posted the first chapter of “a better mirror,” we have come to the conclusion of The Accidental Epic. In that time, the official sequel was released. The fandom rose and the fandom fell. Percival Graves was officially declared dead; Queenie and Credence joined Grindelwald; more weird things happened that no one understands. We’re halfway through the Trump presidency in America; Brexit is up in the air; North Korea didn’t nuke the world. I got a girlfriend. 
> 
> I don’t know how many of the people who started this journey with me are still here. For all of you, whether you joined at the beginning or only just stumbled on this fic, thanks for coming along. <3 I never expected this to be as long as it was, nor as popular as the first fic was. That you’ve all stuck with it through everything is…incredible. And I can’t thank you enough. 
> 
> This isn’t quite my goodbye to this fandom: there’s one more project I’m working on which will be my actual swan song. So watch this space—that will be coming soon. I’m posting the “outtakes” next, which are some short stories and behind the scenes concepts, but this truly is the end of The Accidental Epic. Credence and Graves are, in fact, going to live happily ever after. 
> 
> I wish that I had the space to say all the things that this fic and fandom have meant to me, but I don’t. All I can say is that this has been a pivotal part of my life. And I’ll sure as hell miss it, but the time has come for me to move on. I’ll never forget a single comment, word, or moment of this whole ride. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, y’all. 
> 
> <3<3<3
> 
>  
> 
> _“This is for every one of you_  
>  Make sure that by the time the fisherman returns you are gone  
> Because just like the days I burn at both ends  
> And every time I write, every time I open my eyes  
> I'm cutting out parts of myself simply to hand them over to you  
> So shake the dust  
> And take me with you when you do for none of this has ever been for me…  
> —Anis Mojgani, “Shake the Dust”


End file.
